


the thin creep of the sea

by adnauseam



Category: Dark Matter - Michelle Paver
Genre: Haunting, M/M, Post-Canon, Treat, Trying to comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-01-24 16:17:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18575074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adnauseam/pseuds/adnauseam
Summary: He looked up and Gus was looking back at him.





	the thin creep of the sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reine_des_corbeaux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reine_des_corbeaux/gifts).



 

 

He was sat in his newly acquired, rather ratty armchair, listening to the radio. Its voices moved in and out of his mind like water, leaving no trace behind, the static like jagged fish. He did not bother making out the words. It jarred.

He leant into the sense of unthinking familiarity. He did not think of Jamaica or the job he’d been offered in London or the increasing difficulty of writing to Gus’s parents.

He looked up and Gus was looking back at him.

It sparked in his stomach with electric force and jolted at his heart and he stared up at Gus for long seconds, who was staring into his eyes, expressionless and locked in; more moments passed and he had nothing to say, nothing he could say.

Between one uncertain heartbeat and the next, the shape of him faltered and flickered with the static of the radio, lurching madly and still expressionless, so blank – and was gone.

His rooms were painted white; they swam before him.

 

Some indeterminate stretch of time later, Jack was elbows deep in hot water, cleaning his saucepan, and trying to breathe evenly. He supposed he was going mad. He supposed he ought to be frightened. Well, he wasn’t. Though as much as he would’ve liked to ignore it, his arms were shaking, setting off the water into splinters, hairline cracks, turning to odd bumpy ripples at the surface. He stared down at them absently.

After one ghost, there didn’t seem to be any reason why there couldn’t be another, but – he didn’t want it to be true. His skin was red in the water now and approaching unfeeling, a draught at his back. It seemed so mundane. England beyond the window was grey and clustered. To think of Gus – trapped – on Earth still –

He squeezed his eyes shut.

 

The sky had been a brilliant white when he’d woken up, now it had turned almost blue in places, a soft yellow above the horizon, and catching grey in small smears, at least until he turned to the east and saw a darker, deeper grey twisting in a knot and coming closer.

He moved away from the window and slid his coat on, reaching out for his crutch absent-mindedly. He thought he might walk around the park.

But as he opened the door, he saw Gus slipping from the corridor into the kitchen. Heart hammering, he could not bring himself to follow. He wanted – he wanted – he wanted for a moment to sink to the floor and be absolved.

 

He woke into a bluish, wobbly dark to see Gus sitting on the edge of his mattress, back rigid and eyes staring at the wall.

It took him three breaths to find it within himself to speak; when he did speak it was strained. “Gus?”

Gus turned his head slowly towards him. The motion was very controlled and deliberate. Jack could feel his heartbeat in his temples.

“Gus,” he said again, but there was no reaction this time, only that steady, unseeing stare. “Gus.” He stopped. His breath was snagging in his throat. He was conscious suddenly of wet on his cheeks. He wanted to say _please_.

 

The next time he was expecting it. He was chopping carrots in the kitchen with some dire radio play crackling in the background, and the heat of the stove behind him curling around his arms and back. Beneath the contentedness, though, he was conscious of a constrained, sour note in the air.

“Hello, Gus,” he said, turning, and managed even to smile as Gus regarded him from the doorway. He was frowning slightly. Jack thought perhaps he was trying to remember.

Jack wanted to say _come closer_. He wasn’t sure if that was a good urge to have; he wasn’t sure he cared if it wasn’t. He wasn’t sure he would be able to bear it if Gus did. Turning back to the carrots he was very aware of Gus watching him. He thought: _please be able to hear me_.

 

And after that, Gus was with him everywhere. He was there in the mornings and he was there in the evenings and he was always there at night. He faded at times in the glare of the day’s light, but Jack would see him sometimes, flitting around at the periphery of his vision, wan and drawn but there.

It was – _it was_. There was no describing it. He didn’t know if it was worse, exactly. He could remember how it had felt to love Gus when he was living, and that love had not diminished but – it had changed, somehow. He had been grieving. There wasn’t any way to go back from that.

And – it would be loathsome, wouldn’t it, to be glad that Gus was here? To be glad that Gus was trapped here, unable to move on, so drastically changed and reduced.

The awareness in his eyes was unbearable sometimes.

Walking down the street to the post box, as quick as he could, stabbing into the unforgiving pavement with his crutches, air dragging along his face – and Gus beside him, walking easily and watching him.

Or at nights – any night – trying to get asleep and knowing that Gus was looking at him, that considering, knowing look.

Or in the very early morning, giving sleep up as a lost job, sitting at his rickety table in the kitchen, curtains still drawn, hands round a cup of tea and still cold. And Gus, Gus at the doorway, waiting as if for permission to enter. Eventually, he would make eye contact and Gus would move in, an uncanny, awful smoothness to his walk, and lean against the counter. And the look in his eyes – like he knew, like he was aware – it stung, it hurt.

 

It was so inconceivably terrifying to be back there again, watching the murky water swell and ripple, twisting and turning and congealing but always coursing onward. Would it slip away from the banks and reveal a body again? Dark and heavy and smothered with silt. The sky was pressing down onto him, oversaturated and off-colour. Humiliatingly, he thought if he put a hand to his eyes it would come away wet.

To be here again and for nothing to be changed, not really, nothing altered in any meaningful way. Standing here with a ghost by his side, unable to do anything, unable to reach out to him, to touch, to talk, to do anything — and this forever —

The water rushed past where he stood without pause, without noise. He leant further over the railings, watching.

He turned to look over at Gus. Horribly his mouth was moving slightly, opening, as if about to talk. For one long struggling second he stood there, trying to speak and nothing coming out.

Jack turned on his heel abruptly, unwilling to bear it, and as he strode back to his rooms he thought that Gus was closer to him than before, looking at him with more acute awareness; he was quicker and more uncertain, the glide of his movement less smoothed out, almost restless – and his eyes were very intent. And yet the closer he was the colder the air seemed.

He fumbled with his keys at the door. At the periphery of his vision Gus was reaching out towards him; his heart clenched hard in his chest and he wrenched the door open. Gus’s eyes were so urgent on his. He stumbled inside, breathing hard.

Gus’s arms were still outstretched towards him and it was impossible, suddenly, to suppose him malicious or even unknowing, there was such love and pain there. It was like something broke inside him. He sank down to the floor with his back pressing hard against the door and put his head in his hands. Somehow it was comforting to know Gus was there, the presence of him now achingly familiar. A surge of restless affection stole up his chest. He breathed.

 

The words were very tight and exact on the white paper. _We have accepted your_ – _we look forward to seeing you_ – _botanical gardens_ – _hope that you confirm_ – He did not need to turn around to know that Gus was there.

He moved swiftly into the kitchen and dropped into his chair.

Gus was very close behind Jack then, almost brushing his shoulder. His presence did not feel precisely cold. But it was not particularly human either. It felt like a wave gathering behind him, just about to crash down and absorb him, like if he leant back to meet it he would be drowned.

So he shifted, walked over to the window and stared out, not really looking at anything, staring very hard. He could not see Gus but he thought, or knew somehow, that the expression on Gus's face was a question.

The decision was made, the question answered, before he had even thought to consider it. He was going to Jamaica. Either Gus would follow him or he would not. He was not sure which he wanted. But this would be it. This would have to be accepted, either way.

 

The last day on the ship, as it ripped through the solemn expanse of water under the white-hot sun, Jack stood on the deck and looked for the shore, approaching, approaching. Gus was beside him, though he did not turn to check. He wanted to. He wanted to.

And then there was a croaking, stifled sound. He waited a long moment. A small choked noise was forcing its way out of Gus’s throat.

He was held tight with longing – couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move.

But then he did turn, couldn’t help it, turned to face Gus, whose face was so grave – and less pale, or was that wishful thinking? – like the sun was reaching it, somehow.

 

Some weeks after, affairs mostly settled, he made the trip down to the beach with some botany journals and Isaak at his heels and a hesitant sort of resolution in his stomach that he couldn’t quite admit to himself, or couldn’t quite unpick.

The sand stretched out hot towards the thin creep of the sea, which Jack would not go near, though he knew it would be warm. Towards the horizon any small ruffle was flattened out and the sea stretched out into eternity, hard and cold.

The sun blared overhead. The sand was too dry. Everything was very distinct.

Whenever he looked over, Gus was smiling at him slightly, sprawled out beside him on the sand, close enough to touch, but there was something resigned about his expression that Jack did not quite like.

Jack reached out.

 

**Author's Note:**

> My thanks to Karios, for the title advice.


End file.
